Spy Case Closes With One-Year Terms

A pair of engineers who pleaded guilty to economic espionage charges received their punishment today: a year and a day in prison.

Judge James Ware sentenced Ming Zhong and Fei Ye Friday to a term which is roughly what prosecutors asked (the feds asked for a 12 month sentence, so under the government’s Kafkaesque prison policies, Ware’s punishment is actually better for the defendants, because they can apply for release slightly earlier). Moreover, the prison term is well below the sentencing guidelines for the offense, which came in between three and five years. The defendants had asked for home confinement.

According to Zhong’s attorney, John Williams of Manchester, Williams & Seibert, Ware acknowledged the defendants’ cooperation with the government as a major reason for the downward departure.

The details of that cooperation — namely, a description of China’s economic espionage activities — were cited as the reason for sealing both defendants’ sentencing memoranda. But when we reviewed one of those documents, none of those details could be found. Legal Pad didn’t take the field trip to San Jose to watch the proceeding, but court records and the San Jose Mercury News indicate the engineers won’t begin serving their sentences until after they are done cooperating against another pair of engineers. As previously reported at Cal Law, though, the future value of that cooperation is open to debate.

— Dan Levine